zlacker

>Google will lose all respect from the community and will collapse sooner or later.

I love this little bubble all of HN (or at least a vocal majority) seems to live in. Google is most definitely not collapsing anytime soon, and their products are loved by millions, if not billions, of users all over the world.

>They are losing their monopoly

No, they most definitely aren't. Brave Browser runs on top of Google's Chromium. Firefox runs on top of Google's money. Their lead in search does not seem to be going away anytime soon - there is a reason literally everyone on earth uses Google as a search engine. There is a reason literally everyone on earth uses YouTube to watch any video they want. There is a reason 70% of all phone users use Google's operating system. There is a reason Gmail is by far and away the clear leader in the personal email space.

>They have announced that they will try to block navigation if you have an ad blocker installed (for example when watching a video on YouTube).

As they rightly can. You are under no obligation to use YouTube - and if you do use it, you must pay for it, either by watching ads, or by paying for YouTube Premium.

HN can keep complaining about Google all they want, but Google is one of the few companies that has truly made the Internet the Internet. Their impact on humanity has a whole has so far most definitely been net positive, and you are under no obligation whatsoever to use their products. There is a reason they are the clear leader in the products they offer, and that is because they offer, say, a free tier (as in Gmail), or openness (as in Android).

>>xNeil+(OP)
"the rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two, has all the appearance of might it ever had." - Isaac Asimov, Foundation

>>xNeil+(OP)
> you are under no obligation whatsoever to use their products

Well ... with this new proposal they are trying to change this, don't you think ? Yes, it is not mandatory to watch Youtube, but it should be also mandatory that Google don't collect and sell the personal data without the owner permission or scan all the emails in every Gmail account (free o paid) ... The history of Google is full of these practices and, after discovered, every time they respond "will never do it again" ...

>>urda+A2
While that's a very nice saying, and I appreciate you applying in this context, what you're basically saying is we can never ever assess any organization as strong whatsoever, since every organization that breaks up seems strong at some point.

>>xNeil+(OP)
> Their impact on humanity has a whole has so far most definitely been net positive, and you are under no obligation whatsoever to use their products.

The strategy over the years has always been the same:

1. create a necessary product and give it away "for free"

2. wait until people are used to it and consider it essential and difficult to migrate

3. close the gate and make it no longer free.

For example : Gmail for organisations (at launch free up to 100 users, then 50, then 10, then 0), Maps for websites (lower free tier now), Google Drive (lower free tier now), Youtube is next ... That these are the "best" products in the world is a subjective affirmation. They are pre-installed on devices and difficult to remove ...

They can do whatever they want with their products, of course, but trying to control the openess of the web as we know now, it is a different thing ...

>>xNeil+W5
That's not what was said at all in context, and I do not appreciate you putting words in my valid comment. You dismissed the original argument with your own personal truths.

>>urda+97
You didn't really make a comment -- you just dropped in an Asimov quote. And xNeil's interpretation of the relevance of that comment matched my intuition. If you had some other intent with that comment, maybe you should clarify?

>>urda+97
I guess I can see why you feel that way - you intended to say a company that seems strong may be at risk of failing just like any other company (in this case, just because Google seems large does not mean they are not failing) - which is something I (sort of) agree with!

But doesn't it logically follow that the same truth holds for any other 'strong' company, thereby rendering our perception of it (or any other company) worthless? I'm sorry you're disappointed, but I just made a logical continuation, that's all.